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Feb. 9, 2007
Following a burning passion
Performer has talent for turning personal experience to art.
BAILA LAZARUS
Having appeared in her first commercial (for diapers) when she
was six months old, and having been brought up by an actor/singer
mother, it's no surprise that Tracey Erin Smith has followed a varied
career in the performing arts. That career has brought her back
to the Chutzpah! Festival where, this year, she performs her one-woman
show, The Burning Bush, and brings her workshop Solo Show
Bootcamp to the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC).
Both the play and the workshop draw on Smith's development as a
performer and interest in autobiographical productions and will
appeal to anyone interested in using stories from their lives as
source material for a play, Smith said. Teaching people to develop
theatre from personal experiences has become a passion for Smith.
After her debut as a baby "starlet," Smith continued acting
through childhood. She went to a high school for the performing
arts, then to McGill University, where she studied theatre and improvisation.
She came to Vancouver to study at Studio 58 at Langara College and
worked around the city for a while with Bard on the Beach and Out
West Theatre, but began losing interest in her career.
"It was so strange because I was training full-time since I
was 14, but I thought this wasn't quite the right fit, auditioning
for other people's shows," said Smith, now 36. "So that's
when I thought I better move back to Toronto and become a rabbi."
Her interest in rabbinical studies stemmed from the mid-'80s, when
Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, the first female rabbi in Canada, came to
Toronto's Reform Holy Blossom Synagogue, where Smith had her bat
mitzvah. Smith found her very inspirational.
Coming back to Toronto years later, Smith actually enrolled at York
University to get the necessary credits to apply to rabbinical school.
At that point, "I had to ask myself, 'What is this fantasy
about being a rabbi? What does that really mean?' " Smith explained.
She realized that, from her experience helping out with L'Chaim
seniors at the JCC, she enjoyed "visiting, laughing and singing
with people." To her, being a rabbi would somehow allow her
to do all these things, but she realized she could achieve the same
result through her performances and teaching.
"Now I get to laugh and hang out with people of all ages,"
she said, "and talk about the lighter stuff or the heavier
stuff, in terms of where they're at in their spiritual journey."
In 2000, she took a creativity workshop in New York, which jump-started
her career in teaching adults. "It's been as much a passion
of mine as performing, since then," she said.
Smith now teaches various theatre classes, including improvisation
and overcoming shyness. She also teaches at Ryerson University's
Act II, the largest theatre school in North America for people over
50.
At Ryerson, she developed her course on solo theatre.
"This place has been my laboratory," she said. "It's
where I put everything I'm passionate about in one course –
Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, Jung's archetypes,
creativity, personal myth and storytelling – it's where I teach
actors and non-actors to create a one-person show based on their
life."
She especially likes working with non-actors, she said.
"For them, it's not just about creating a show; it's like a
personal Everest," she said. "You have Outward Bound.
This is inward bound."
But she cautions that this is not "drama-therapy." Although
people share details of their lives, which serve as raw material
for their writing, no one has to share anything with which they
are uncomfortable. She encourages anyone thinking about doing this
to give it a try.
"Any life can be made into a play, because in everyone's life
there are so many stories and so many characters," she said.
Using her own story of rabbinical ambition, Smith created The
Burning Bush, where the lead character (unlike Smith) actually
goes to rabbinical school and is kicked out. She ends up having
a revelation in a strip club. It follows what happens to someone
who has always dreamed of doing something but who has their dreams
shattered.
"Where does life take her next?" Smith mused. "She
learns to become a rabbi but in a completely different way. In Hebrew,
rabbi means teacher, and there are a million ways to be a teacher
in life."
The Burning Bush runs at the Wosk 2nd Stage Sunday, Feb.
18, 8 p.m.; Monday, Feb. 19, 9:30 p.m.; and Tuesday, Feb. 20, 7:30
p.m. Phone 604-257-5145 or visit www.chutzpahfestival.com
for tickets. Solo Show Bootcamp will be held Tuesday, Feb. 20, 9
a.m.-1 p.m., at the Wosk 2nd Stage. The cost is $40. Call 604-257-5111,
ext. 293, to register.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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